


Same Disease

by vials



Category: James Bond (Craig movies), Skyfall (2012) - Fandom
Genre: Angst, Gen, Pre-Canon, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-15
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-07-24 06:39:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7498011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vials/pseuds/vials
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Séverine has learned not to trust offers and promises, but that changes when she meets Raoul Silva. It's the first and last time she ever underestimates him, but she realises there's danger in high expectations, too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [HCN](https://archiveofourown.org/users/HCN/gifts).



She was afraid of him when she first met him.

It wasn’t surprising, really – she had seen plenty of dangerous men in her time, and Raoul was nothing if not dangerous. She could tell, even when he was smiling, all jokes and pleasantries. She could see it in his eyes. He never missed anything. He was kind to her from the start, but she still feared him. People like that were never kind for no reason. She knew how to act and what to say, but the thought was constantly at the back of her mind – what did he want? She would have been a fool to not notice that he had singled her out. Later he would tell her it was because he recognised the same look on her face, and he had said that she was dangerous, and at the time Séverine hadn’t believed him but the words had stayed in her mind all the same. His words had a way of doing that, she found. They got into your head, and they wouldn’t leave. She thought that was part of what made him so dangerous. 

She saw him around fairly often after that, and the fear never quite left her. He looked at her like he was planning something, and not once in Séverine’s life had that ended well. 

One evening, she was dropped off to meet with someone at a nearby hotel, and it was already late and lashing with rain. She hurried from the car to the foyer, trying to ignore how she could feel the pitying eyes from behind the reception desk on her as she crossed the room and pressed for the elevator. She felt a flash of anger as she stepped inside, turning to face the doors again and seeing one of the employees beginning to shake her head as though to say it was a shame. Of course it was a shame, but did they do anything? They knew what went on, and yet they never stopped anyone from using the hotel in that way. It was all an act, a way to pretend that they cared. They would forget about her as soon as the lift doors had closed. Séverine could have punched the wall, but she held herself still, staring rigidly ahead, swallowing the anger like poison. 

It was warmer in the hallways upstairs, and Séverine was glad for it. The rainwater was still cold on her skin, and she had been on the verge of shivering all the way up. She walked along the hallways, knowing them well, and after a couple of abrupt right angled turns she found the room she was looking for. It was all business then; a knock, a smile, and whatever the bastard wanted to hear for the night.

She was surprised when she recognised who opened the door, and then she was angry. Of course she should have known that was why he was looking at her. Nothing more – there never was. 

Something must have shown on her face, despite the fact that she had been trained to disguise such things. She didn’t think she had slipped up, but Raoul immediately raised an eyebrow, stepping to the side so she could come in. She did, despite the fact she wanted to scream.

“It’s not like that, dear child,” he said, and it took her a moment to place what felt so strange – he was speaking Cantonese. She looked at him for a moment, for the first time getting a proper look at him. Initially she had thought he was white, but now she could see he wasn’t – his skin was too dark, and the blonde of his hair was clearly unnatural. One thing was for certain, though – he wasn’t Chinese. 

“You speak Cantonese?” she asked, because it was the easier question. The other question was in regards to what he wanted if not that, and she wasn’t sure she wanted to know. He smiled, that same smile she was so wary of, but there was nothing about his body language that was threatening. She didn’t like being caught in the middle like this, unsure of how she should feel.

“I’ve picked it up,” he told her. “You seem surprised.”

“You don’t look like the type.”

“And what type do I look like?”

“I thought you were a white man.”

“Funny. I never get that from white people.”

He was still smiling, and despite her discomfort, Séverine felt the beginnings of curiosity. She looked around the room, seeing that it didn’t look all that different from any other hotel room she had been in. There was nothing there to give her a clue as to what was going on, and she felt some of the anxiety come back.

“Sit,” he told her, and she did, if only because it would be easier to disguise the fact she was shaking slightly. She hated when she didn’t know what to expect. Most people were straightforward; it was the freaks that wasted time. “I suppose you’re wondering why you’re here, if not for the usual services.”

She watched him from where she sat on the edge of the bed. He was leaning against the desk, sitting right on its edge, and he looked perfectly comfortable. She thought back to the other times she had seen him around, remembering that he had looked just as at ease then, too. She wondered if there was anywhere he didn’t feel comfortable. She wondered what that was like. Was this confidence genuine, or was it simply covering something up? She hoped not. What people were covering up always came back to hurt her in the end.

“I’m curious,” she eventually said, when it was clear he expected a response. 

“Do you want to leave?” he asked, and she was about to answer that her escorts wouldn’t be picking her up until the agreed time when she realised that he didn’t mean the hotel. She blinked at him, fighting the sudden urge to laugh.

“Leave?” she asked. 

“Yes, leave,” he said. “I can’t imagine you’re happy doing this.”

She did laugh then, a short, bitter laugh that to her annoyance failed to wipe the sincere look off of Raoul’s face. 

“You’re one of them, are you?” she asked, and when he raised an eyebrow, she went on. “I get people like you a lot, Mr …?”

“Raoul Silva,” he said, a shadow of a smile on his face, and she returned it in her own way, a look she knew could probably be described as sarcastic.

“Mr. Silva,” she repeated. “I know your type. You fancy yourself as some kind of answer, a saviour. You all promise the same things. You can get me out, you can rescue me. You tell me you’re sure I must hate it here, that you’re sure I must want for something else. You tell me you can make it happen, and you fuck me, and nothing ever comes of it. I think you all get off on it.”

To her frustration, Raoul only laughed.

“So vulgar!” he said, and he seemed genuinely entertained. Séverine let out a huff, getting to her feet, and Raoul stayed lounging against the desk. They were about eye to eye, and Séverine forced herself to look right at him. The blue was unnatural too, she thought. 

“There’s nothing you can do for me,” she told him. “You should be ashamed of yourself, calling people out to feed them false hope. It takes a special kind of sick.”

“Let me prove it to you,” he said, and she shook her head, forcing herself to smile again because she was worried about what she might do otherwise.

“You don’t even know me,” she said quietly. “Why would you want to risk your life to help me?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, instead turning and leaving before it became obvious she was crying. It would be a long wait downstairs under the pitying eyes of the hotel staff, but she preferred pity to false hope. It was only when she saw the car arrive that she remembered they had no idea of what had happened, no way of knowing that it hadn’t been that kind of meeting, and she was without any payment. For a moment all she could do was stand rooted to the spot, knowing that they had seen her. She didn’t have time to run back, and even if she had, she didn’t think she would. He didn’t owe her anything, after all, and she could never forget her first instinct. He was dangerous, but so were her escorts. It all came down to who she took a chance with.

Séverine had decided as she started walking towards the car, forgetting about her self-control as she passed from the light of the foyer and into the shadows outside. She let the tears come freely, and she ignored the guilt in the pit of her stomach. He had meant well, but she refused to put her own life at risk for a stranger’s well-intentioned mistake. 

A voice reached her from the rolled-down window when she didn’t immediately get into the car. 

“What are you doing, girl? Hurry up!”

“He didn’t pay me,” she said evenly, though she added a sniff for good measure.

“Get in the car.”

She did, getting in the back as the two escorts climbed out of the front. They left the engine running, and she hunched down in her seat, trying to focus on the vibrations so she didn’t have to think too much about what she had done. He had wanted to risk dying for her, after all. She supposed in a way, he had got his chance.

When several minutes had passed, she opened her eyes again. It was taking too long. She sat up slightly, peering out of the tinted window and squinting into the hotel lobby. It was well lit, and she could see someone at the desk, talking to the receptionist. She knew it was Raoul even from this distance. The hair was unmistakable.

“Oh my god,” she whispered, slinking back down in her seat as he turned around and headed towards the doors. He had his bags with him – had they somehow missed him on his way out? She stayed slouched down, hoping he would just go on his way, but she knew the idling car was too conspicuous. 

Still, it was a surprise when he calmly walked around the car and pulled the back door open, putting his bags down on the seat beside Séverine as though he hadn’t noticed her. He didn’t speak as he closed the door and then got in the front, and it was only when he put the car into gear and pulled away from the curb that Séverine finally broke the silence.

“What are you doing?” she demanded, leaning forward in her seat so she could see him properly. “Are you mad? Are you insane? Where are they? What do you think you’re –”

“They’re dead,” he said simply, not sparing her as much as a glance in the rear view mirror. “All’s fair, though, considering they tried to kill me first. Apparently I didn’t pay you.” His tone was conversational, but Séverine slunk back in her seat again. She had gambled with who she thought the least dangerous would be, and evidently it had backfired. She never had been very lucky.

“And now you’re going to kill me,” she said, and to her surprise, Raoul laughed.

“Oh, heavens, no,” he said, and finally he looked at her in the mirror and she saw he was genuine. “That’s not the first time someone’s tried to kill me, child, and I don’t take it personally any more. No, I’m rather impressed. Self-preservation is an admirable trait.”

Séverine didn’t know what to say to that. Her heart was hammering in her chest and she was fighting the urge to try and run from the car at every traffic light, but something made her stay. Several minutes of silence later, she finally voiced what it was.

“They’re really dead?” she asked, barely daring to hope. 

“They’re dead,” Raoul confirmed, and Séverine felt herself beginning to shake.

“That’s not all there is,” she said. “They’ll be looking for me. They’ll be looking for this car. They’ll kill us both.”

“I suppose we’d better get out of here, then,” Raoul said. He glanced at her again. “I’ll ask you one more time. Do you want to leave?”

Séverine could feel tears on her cheeks again, but this time she didn’t bother trying to hide them. She could only stare at his reflection in the mirror, and then, for the first time in her life, she allowed herself to answer the question.

“Yes.”


	2. Chapter 2

The night was unusually cold, and Séverine thought there must be a storm coming. The only reason that she had been able to spend so much time up here was because of one of Raoul’s jumpers, handed to her when he had seen her climbing up here in the first place, and while the rest of her wasn’t exactly dressed for the wind she found it was big enough to tuck over her knees as she sat at the roof’s edge, looking out over the sea. She had smoked her way through a good half packet of cigarettes, and she was beginning to realise that she probably wouldn’t be getting back to sleep tonight. 

She guessed it had maybe been six months since Raoul had made good on his offer. He had got her out of there, and ever since then, Séverine had been waiting for the catch. She refused to believe for a moment that he had decided to do it just because he could, but the more she found out about the man, the more she thought that it might not be as unbelievable as she thought. He was a strange man, and her fear of him still hadn’t lifted entirely. She didn’t know why – he had been nothing but decent to her, maybe even _kind_ , but then she thought about her surroundings and remembered that whatever he was doing, it was serious.

She wished she could relax and enjoy how good she had it, but she was constantly waiting to find out how she was going to pay for it. She stubbed the cigarette out on the concrete and went back to staring at the ocean, seeing the stars had vanished from the sky at the horizon. A storm, then, definitely. Séverine gave a thin smile. 

The roof door creaked behind her, too prolonged to be the wind, and she turned to look. She had been expecting it to be Raoul, and so it was no surprise to see him there. She didn’t know why she’d had the feeling that he would join her tonight, and at the same moment as she saw him, she told herself that she would get some answers. She couldn’t stand living in limbo anymore. 

“That sweater is a good look on you,” he said, leaning against the wall she was sitting on and also looking out to the storm clouds on the horizon. The wind howled through the many broken windows surrounding them, carrying some of his voice away.

“Please,” she scoffed. “Sweaters have never been my thing.”

“They should be.”

Séverine rolled her eyes and then looked at him, seeing he was still looking out across the buildings. She thought he looked tired. She knew he worked odd hours, but suddenly she got the feeling that she wasn’t the only one trying to find something other to do than sleep tonight. 

“Is this why you brought me here?” she asked. She figured if this was a forbidden line of questioning, he could just shove her over the edge of the roof and be done with it. “To try and persuade me that I look good in sweaters?”

“Not quite,” Raoul smiled. 

“Then why?” she asked, continuing to look at him, her eyes narrowed slightly. “Surely you didn’t bring me here just to wander around? There has to be something.”

“There is,” Raoul said, still looking out to sea. “But it’s not relevant right now.”

His answer did nothing for Séverine’s anxiety, and she was unpleasantly reminded of just how cryptic the man could be sometimes.

“I want to know why you helped me,” she said, and he looked at her then, catching her by surprise. She always forgot how intense his looks could be, as though he were reading her. “That was a huge risk. It still is. They don’t like it when you steal from them. I refuse to believe that you did it for free.”

“I saw something in you,” Raoul said. “I wanted it for myself.”

“What did you see in me that you wanted?” Séverine demanded. “You’ve never tried anything with me, never even _hinted_ that that’s something you would want.”

“It’s not physical, my dear,” Raoul said, shaking his head. “It’s a shame that that’s the only thing you consider.”

“It’s been the only thing that mattered for years,” Séverine said coldly. “I fail to see why it’s any different now.”

“How old are you, Séverine?”

She smiled; a tight, forced thing.

“You know I’m not answering that.”

“Fair enough,” Raoul said, looking back out over the buildings. “I understand it’s probably a difficult subject.”

“You still didn’t answer my question,” she said, and she could feel her frustration mounting. She was sure he did it on purpose, all this question dodging and non-answers, and she reached for her cigarettes again. She’d probably get through the packet in half the time if Raoul was going to be up here with her. 

“You have a look about you,” he said, as she struggled to get a flame to stick in the wind. “It’s in your face. You’re dangerous, and you would be wasted there. I imagine you would have probably gotten yourself killed, and it would have been an extraordinary waste of talent.”

She had finally succeeded in lighting the cigarette, and she blew out smoke as she scoffed.

“Dangerous?” she asked. “What’s dangerous about me?”

“You’re angry,” Raoul said. “And you’re smart. Those two things alone are enough to make someone dangerous.”

“I’m sure I’m not the only angry, smart person in the world,” Séverine said. She took a long drag of the cigarette, only speaking again when the last of the smoke had left her. “We were all angry there. Every one of us. Do you think we wanted to be in that situation? Every one of us was angry, but we all showed it in different ways. I saw you around a lot before we finally met properly, and I know you must have seen the others. I have to wonder why you chose me out of all of them, or was it just a random pick?”

“Well, that I can’t answer,” Raoul said, looking at her again. “You’re right when you say all of you were angry, and I would even admit that you weren’t the only one with this particular brand of anger. But there’s something that’s deeper in yours. I can’t explain it yet. Maybe one day. I’ve only ever seen it once before, and I’d like the chance to work it out.”

“Where have you seen it before?” Séverine asked.

“In myself,” Raoul replied, and Séverine took another drag, this time blowing the smoke out in rings that were quickly snatched up by the wind.

“You have it in yourself, and you don’t know what it is,” she said. “How?”

“I have ideas,” Raoul said. “But I like to wait on my hypotheses before I share them. It’s better that way, wouldn’t you say? Less room for embarrassing mistakes.”

“I can’t say I want to be your test subject,” Séverine said, frowning. “I’m not a tool for you to use to work out yourself.”

“Even if you were, it’s better than before, no?”

“That’s not setting the standards very high.”

“I promise you it will get better.”

“When?”

“When you’re older.”

“You don’t know how old I am.”

“I can tell you’re not old enough for anything I might ask you to do. It’s a dangerous world, and I don’t want you to ever feel scared again. Wouldn’t you like that? Time to learn how to protect yourself? How to make sure you always have the upper hand?”

She wouldn’t lie to herself and say that it wasn’t something she was interested in, but the question always remained – why? She had no idea what Raoul even did out here on this island, and when he said things like this she found herself simultaneously wanting to know more, and never wanting to ask again. 

“I want to know how,” she said. “In case they ever come looking for me.”

“They’ll never find you.”

“They have a lot of eyes.”

“Lots of people do, but none of them have found this place yet.”

She stole another glance at him, seeing he was wearing the slightest frown. For some reason, it hadn’t hit her that he might be hiding himself. It would explain their remote location. She looked at him and remembered the fear always at the back of her mind and she wondered just who this man could be hiding from out here. 

“Are you ever going to tell me what you do here?” she asked. “Or do I have to find that out when I’m older, too?”

“I’m sure you’ll find out in due time,” Raoul said. “I don’t want you to know too much just yet, darling. You might decide it’s not for you, after all.”

“I didn’t realise I had a choice.”

“You always have a choice.”

Séverine stared at him, for a moment forgetting her cigarette. She was sure he couldn’t be serious, but despite his cryptic answers and his tendency to be highly amused when she thought he shouldn’t be, Raoul had never given her any reason to believe he was lying to her. 

“You would bring me all the way out here, risk all that for me, and then you’d let me go?” Séverine asked, the note of disbelief obvious in her voice. “Forgive me, but this all seems too good to be true.”

“I thought that myself, once upon a time.”

“And did it turn out to be too good to be true?”

Raoul paused for a moment, and Séverine could see him frowning in thought. When he answered, she could tell he was measuring his words.

“No,” he said. “It was just as good as I thought it would be. If we’re using clichés, I suppose the one that would apply the most here is _all good things must come to an end_.”

“Was it worth it?” she asked, and he gave a small smile.

“I think so,” he said, before pushing himself away from the wall and turning to her. “You should come inside. It’s cold, and you won’t be able to stay out here for much longer anyway.”

Even as he spoke, she could feel the flecks of rain beginning to reach them. The realisation made her feel suddenly claustrophobic – the last thing she wanted was to be trapped indoors for the rest of the night, especially when she knew sleep wouldn’t come. She didn’t think her thoughts had translated into anything noticeable, but they must have done, because Raoul seemed to have followed along perfectly.

“Most people are sleeping, but I doubt I’m going to for another few hours,” he said. “You can stay with me, if you like.”

She glanced at him before stubbing the cigarette out on the concrete, hoping she didn’t look too relieved. There was something about the prospect of being by herself that didn’t sit well with her tonight, and besides, she was pretty sure that she had just got the closest she’d ever been to getting any information out of Raoul whatsoever. Even the hint at his past was enough to keep her interested.

“I suppose it’s better than being awake alone,” she said, and she stood up and followed him inside.


	3. Chapter 3

They fell into a pattern over the new few months. It seemed that when she was left to her own devices, Séverine was very much a night owl, keeping similar hours to Raoul. Once most people had wound down for the night and she found it was getting too quiet, she would seek out Raoul, whenever he was, and curl up in his general vicinity with one of the many books scattered around the island. She hadn’t taken him for a big reader at first, though now she knew otherwise, she wondered how she hadn’t see it before. She didn’t think she had seen so many books in her life, and she was glad for it. She had missed reading, and there were plenty of books in the languages she was most comfortable with to keep her occupied.

She was nosing through another stack of them when she heard a break in Raoul’s typing, glancing over at him to see him cracking his knuckles and looking thoughtfully at his screen. Sometimes she got the feeling he barely even realised she was in the room, so engrossed he would get in his work, yet she never felt as though she were intruding. She didn’t know why she suddenly felt the need to be in his company as much as possible – certainly not when she considered that fact that her fear of him still hadn’t quite dissipated – but she was beginning to think she wasn’t imagining it when she thought he looked pleased to see her there. She wondered if he had the same problem with the nights, if they were too still and quiet for him, or if sleep was something that wasn’t easy for him, either.

“What have you got there?” he asked, and she glanced at him again to see he had turned the chair around, watching her as he stretched his legs out. 

“I’m just looking,” she said. “You have a lot of different languages here. Can you understand them all?”

“Some better than others, but I have an understanding of all of them,” Raoul said. “I have a terrible habit of picking them up from all over the place.”

“Have you read them all?”

“Most of them. I’m sure there are a few that got buried before I could finish them, though. What about you? Do you understand them all?”

“Not all of them,” she said, looking at a couple of titles she couldn’t understand. “I get the Cantonese, obviously, and the French and the English. I can get the more simple Italian ones, but I still have a way to go with that. Some of them I don’t get, though. The Russian, I have no idea. And … is it Spanish? There’s a lot of those. I don’t get that, either.”

“Portuguese,” Raoul corrected, and Séverine looked at one of the titles again. 

“That makes more sense,” she said. “Though, it still looks kind of different.”

“Well, Brazilian Portuguese, to be precise,” Raoul said, and she looked at him, curious.

“Is that what you speak? Your first language, I mean?”

He nodded, giving a small smile.

“So Brazil, then. That’s home?”

“Once upon a time,” he said. “I haven’t been back in a long while.”

“Would you ever want to?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I don’t know,” Séverine said, shrugging. She sat cross-legged on the floor, by the pile of books. “I guess I just wonder about it, when people are so far away from home. I wonder if they ever want to go back, or if they’re bored of the place because that’s _home_ , and they’re so used to it.” She looked at him, still chewing over the information. It seemed so obvious now, with his surname.

“I sometimes wonder about going back,” Raoul said, cracking his knuckles again. “But I don’t think there’s much for me there. Maybe some nostalgia, but I don’t think it would be enough to justify a trip. Not when there’s so much more to see. It’s like you said, it’s home. It’s familiar. Maybe for people who seek out familiarity, that might be alluring, but I never saw the appeal.”

“That’s what I think,” Séverine said. “I don’t like the familiar.”

“Oh?”

“It’s a lie,” she said, and he was looking at her with that intent gaze again and she looked at the books stacked next to her instead, reaching out and running a finger down their spines. “Once something starts feeling familiar, you can miss it. It’s a false sense of security.”

“So you wouldn’t want to go home, then?”

For some reason, Séverine felt tears spring to her eyes. 

“I don’t think I’d like that,” she said quietly.

“Where is home?”

She almost wasn’t going to tell him, but she couldn’t help herself. Maybe it felt fair, considering she knew where he was from, or maybe she just desperately wanted someone to know. Either way, she told him.

“France.”

He raised an eyebrow, interested. “You’re French?”

“Half French,” she said, blinking quickly. Her eyes were still stinging. “One of my parents is French, the other Chinese. I was born in France, and grew up there. We would spend summers in China, and sometimes visit during the year, but that’s where I grew up and went to school. It seems so long ago now. Like a different life.” She gave a thin smile. “People are always surprised. I know I don’t look French.”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Raoul said. “I can see it. You have the French elegance about you, at any rate. And you’re on the tall side compared to most Asian women I’ve met.”

“I was always the tallest when I visited my Chinese family,” Séverine said, and she even managed a laugh. She didn’t know why it was so easy to talk to Raoul about this – she hadn’t mentioned her family in years, not to anyone. “By a few inches, too. I was more average back in France. There were a lot of tall girls. European girls are strangely tall.” She smiled for a moment, and then it faded slightly. She needed to be careful. She didn’t want this to become unbalanced. She might know where Raoul had grown up, but she was still aware of how much there was about him that she _didn’t_ know.

“I suppose that’s where you must have picked up your habit of reading, hmm?” Raoul asked. “All that travelling when you were younger.”

“I’d always want to bring more books than the weight would really allow,” she said, giving another small smile before she looked at him. “What about you? Did you just stay in Brazil, or did you have other family elsewhere?”

“Nothing that interesting for me, I’m afraid,” Raoul said, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t elaborate. She was surprised when he did. “I didn’t have a very big family. Just my parents and a grandmother, but I didn’t see her often. Not until my parents died, anyway, and then I lived with her.”

“I’m sorry,” Séverine said, and for some reason she found herself genuinely shocked. She had met a lot of orphans in her time, of varying ages, and they all had something particular about them that she hadn’t sensed in Raoul. She hadn’t expected to find out his parents had died at an age where he still needed to be looked after.

“Oh, don’t be. It was a long time ago,” Raoul said, waving a hand. “It would have been nice to have more family, I think. I could have done with seeing a bit more of the country before I left.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Better job opportunities elsewhere,” Raoul said, and Séverine detected the vagueness in his voice. “There wasn’t much going for me in rural Brazil, especially not with my affinity for technology. I needed to go elsewhere to keep learning.”

“And somehow you find yourself with an empire on your own island,” Séverine said, raising an eyebrow, and Raoul laughed.

“There was a little bit in between that and now,” he said. “Anyway, perhaps that’s why I don’t go back to Brazil. There wasn’t much there for me then, and there’s not even my grandmother now. I imagine she died years ago. Probably for the best. She was a little out of her mind.”

Séverine wanted to ask, but she got the idea that this was one of those things that would either come out in its own time, or never at all. There was a moment of silence before she felt Raoul’s eyes on her again; she glanced up, suddenly getting the idea that she wouldn’t like whatever he was going to say next. She was right.

“Would you ever want to see your family again? Your parents, if they’re still around?”

There was a stupid moment where the question nearly undid years of Séverine’s hard work, but she managed to push through it, force back the urge to beg him to help her find them again. She knew he could. She hadn’t been here for very long, and she still had no idea what he did here, but between what she knew about him and what she knew about his computers, she knew he could find them. It took everything she had to crush the thoughts.

“No,” she said, and she had hoped her voice would sound even, but to her horror even the simple word caught in her throat.

“That doesn’t sound very sincere,” he said, and she tried to laugh but that caught, too. She blinked, feeling her eyelashes were damp.

“I can’t see them again,” she said, taking a deep breath. “It’s … it’s just not possible. It’s not kind.”

“Not kind?”

She shook her head, trying to find the words. 

“It’s been too long,” she said, and she could feel the tears on her cheeks now, too. “It wouldn’t be fair to them. I – they haven’t seen me in a long time. They probably think I’m dead. It’s kinder to let them think that. They would have grieved, they would have moved on as best as they could. It would be cruel for me to come back like this. When they’re expecting their daughter, and instead they get –” She broke off, trying to find the words, and then she gave up and just gestured to herself. “ _This_.”

Séverine heard him move then, getting to his feet; glancing up, she saw something on his face that made her feel cold. She couldn’t explain why – it wasn’t a look that made her angry, like they usually did, but rather one that made her feel afraid. Not in the way she usually felt afraid of him, either. That was a more logical fear, one that was easily inspired by men like him. This fear was different. It was the idea that she had said far too much, given him information that she had never intended to give, even though she had deliberately been as vague as possible. He came over to her, crouching down beside her, and when he reached out and touched her face, wiping at her cheeks with his thumb, his touch was oddly gentle. She realised this was the first time he had actually touched her, and she expected to want to shrink away. Instead, the look on his face made her want to cling to him. She resisted the urge, but she felt herself crying harder, and she wished she could get a grip.

“You’re too young to have to know how that feels,” he told her, and the sorrow in his voice was so genuine that she couldn’t look at him anymore. She dropped her gaze, trying to swallow back the sobs. 

“I don’t know what to do,” she said, as quietly as she could manage. She hated how broken her voice sounded. She hadn’t cried in years – not properly. She had thought she had gotten it all out of her system those first few months after she had been taken, when she had cried constantly until she realised it would do no good. “You’re not meant to know when people are grieving for you. You’re meant to be dead. You’re not meant to miss them back. You’re not meant to have to live with this!”

“I know,” he said softly, and usually she would have lashed out, demanding to know _how_ he knew, accusing him of not knowing anything, not like she did. She didn’t feel the need with Raoul. Something told her he was being honest. Something told her that he did know.

She remembered what he had said, that night on the roof. The thing he saw in her, and in himself. Was this what he had meant? She made herself look at him again, seeing something familiar in his eyes. It took her a moment to place where she had seen it before, and when she remembered – staring back at her from mirrors, in her own eyes – she couldn’t look anymore. She brought her hands up, pressing them over her eyes, trying to quieten her crying. Nothing seemed to be working. When she felt Raoul reach out, gently pulling her closer, she let him. She turned her face against him and clung to his shirt and tried not to think about how pathetic she must look.

He was talking to her in a language she didn’t understand, his voice low and calming and even if she didn’t know what he was saying, the words were comforting to listen to. They sounded almost like a song, the words soft and flowing, and she let herself listen, let herself gradually relax against him. For a while she thought she might be on the verge of sleep; her voice sounded sluggish when she spoke again, her inhibitions down in the way only tiredness could make possible.

“You’re dead too,” she said, because it seemed so obvious now. She felt him tense, only slightly, only for a second, but then he sighed.

“Yes,” he said.

She thought she would want to know the details, but instead, only one question came to mind.

“Does it ever get easier?”

“In time, darling. In time.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One final thing: I took the title of this fic from _Rabid_ by Nicole Dollanganger, which is definitely one of my main Silva/Séverine songs (especially in the later years). You can listen to it on [Bandcamp](https://nicoledollanganger.bandcamp.com/track/rabid)!


End file.
